The most promising results from the SETI@home search for extraterrestrial life are to be followed up using the world's largest radio telescope.

Since May 1999, SETI@home — run by the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, a non-profit organization — has divided radio signals from our Galaxy into quarter-megabyte chunks and sent them to the desktop computers of more than four million registered volunteers. The computers flag up strong or regular signals for subsequent analysis.

Later this month, researchers from the University of California will use the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico to study the locations indicated by the 150 most promising results. The project's chief scientist, Dan Werthimer of the University of California, Berkeley, says that there is about a 1-in-10,000 chance of finding something.

SETI staff say they could be looking at the wrong wavelengths or in the wrong place. “I'm optimistic that the Universe is teeming with life,” says Werthimer. “But I'm not convinced we know exactly how to find it.”

→ http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu